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...federal lawsuit against the National Football League in Atlanta. These 100 players are just a few, in the now more than 1,000 cases pending against the NFL. “The cases say not enough was done to inform players about the dangers of concussions in the past, and not enough is done to take care of them today,” according to the Associated Press of Atlanta. With new studies appearing monthly about the dangers of concussions and the lasting impact brain trauma can have, players are starting to question whether the NFL has or had their best interest at heart. With such obvious risk to the players, the issue arises of whether the NFL has a responsibility to take care of players who sacrificed their physical well being for the sport. In recent news, Junior Seau, former All-American and MVP middle linebacker, was found dead in his home, with what is believed to have been a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Chris Henry, Owen Thomas and Dave Duerson are just a few other former members of the National Football League who after dedicating everything to the NFL took their own lives. The disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, according to the Journal of Forensic Nursing is, “a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic sub-concussive hits to...

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Concussions in the NFL
By: Eric D.
Submitted to:
Northern Michigan University
EN 211D
March 25, 2013
Table of Contents
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………ii
List of Illustrations……………………………………………………………………………….………iv
I. Introduction……...……………………………………………………………………….......…5
II. Concussions………………………………………………………………………….…………6
A. Effects………………………………………………………………………….………6
B. CTE……………………………………………………………………………….……7
1. Disease…………………………………………………………………….……7
2. Mike Webster…………………………………………………………….….….7
3. Second Impact Syndrome………………………………………………………………8
III. NFL……………………………………………………………………………………………9
A. Former Players Condidtions……………………………………………………………9
B. Current Player Conditions……...………………………………………………..……11
C. NFLConcussion Cover-up……………………………………………………………11
IV. Improvements to the game…………………………………………………………………...13
A. Rule changes………………………………………………………………………….13
B. Technology……………………………………………………………………………13
V. Summary……..……………………………………………………………………………….15
Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………..16
Abstract
Football is America’s most popular sport, and there’s no bigger stage than the NFL. Americans enjoy watching football for the huge hits players put on each other during the games. But with big hits come with big impacts. In many cases, the hits the players take lead to concussions....

...﻿Concussions in The NFLConcussions in the NFL have become much more prevalent, and the effects of these concussions appear to have become more severe, as this is a direct result of the development of player training systems. Over the past decade there has been vast improvements made in the training equipment and techniques used to train NFL players. This has inevitably resulted in players getting much stronger, faster, and bigger. Over the same period of time concussions have also systematically became more frequent as well. This has led many people to believe that there is some type of relationship between the improvements in player training and the increase of concussions over the course of a NFL season. The focus of the first paragraph of this essay will be on the overall increase of strength and size of players and how this relates to concussions. The second paragraph will focus on the amount of season and career ending concussion that have occurred this last season opposed to the amount before it. The third paragraph will focus on the studies, which have been conducted on past players that have showed they have some sort of brain damage, which has resulted from football related activity.
The overall strength and size increase is most obvious on the offensive and defensive lines. Consider this in the mid...

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Concussions in Football
Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, has been under a lot of scrutiny for the past couple years for his attempts to change the rules to decrease and pretty much get rid of violent hits to the head and neck to protect the players. These rules are under scrutiny because there are many people that are saying these rules are making the game of football a “soft game” and ruining it in a sense. Football has been a game that since its beginnings has always praised and celebrated toughness and violent hits. Now these rules are making it frowned upon. These rule changes drastically started popping up before the 2010 season. There are a couple big events that have pulled concussions to the forefront of concern in football. One of the biggest ones is the Concussion lawsuit that was brought against the NFL by4,500 members of former players families and even former players themselves. The lawsuit was just settled last Thursday that will cost the NFL $765 million. Much of that money is going to players and families to compensate for all the medical treatments. Also some of it will be going to baseline testing for retired players, and $10 million will fund research and education for concussions. Another big event that has been occurring over roughly the past 10 years has been many ex NFL players such as Dave Duerson, a former Chicago Bear, who...

...Communication Studies
Nelson
Andrew Vanstratum
Concussions in the NFL
Recently in the NFL, the issue of concussions has been thrusted into the spotlight, and for good reasons. From the 2009 season to the 2010 seasons, the amount of concussions increased by twenty-one percent denoting a serious problem in the NFL . The current NFL guideline regarding concussions is vague and needs to be changed. Currently the rule simply states that upon having a concussion, the player should not come back until he is fully asymptomatic. The problem with this is that concussions are often times tricky to diagnose and test, and when you couple that with the players’ competitiveness and motivation to play, it often leads to players coming back onto the field before they are truly healthy. The current NFL guideline needs to be remodeled to enforce a stricter, more uniform policy amongst all NFL organizations. Because concussions deal with brain activity, uniform policies are often hard to implement but through advances in equipment and monetary punishments the NFL is making tremendous strides to rectify the issue.
Until recently, concussions were thought to have been a minor injury, an injury that would cause the player to sit out a few plays but not a whole game. Several former...

...have been filed claim “tortious conduct” on the part of the NFL, resulting in neuro-degenerative disease and injury to professional football players.1 As of January 24, 2013, over 4,500 retired NFL players, more than one-third of players to ever sign an NFL contract, had brought a suit against the NFL concerning the head injuries that they sustained on the field during their playing careers. (Anderson, 1). Given the outstanding popularity of football in the United States, these lawsuits have garnered the attention of national media, prompting debate, discussion, and research about the dangers of football-related head injuries and the future of the NFL. (Fenno, 1). The litigation has the potential to reach the scale of the Big Tobacco litigation of the 1990’s, but the NFL has thrown a substantial roadblock in the players’ suit with a federal employment law preemption defense. (Fisher, 1). The consolidation of all the lawsuits into the Multidistrict Litigation has created the ability for both parties to decide the legal issues presented by the players’ claims and the NFL’s defenses. This paper will examine the merits of those claims and defenses, offer insight into how the players applied rhetorical devices to further their case, address the link established between the NFL and Big Tobacco, and how the court could likely rule regarding the concussion litigation, if...

...hard helmet-to-helmet hits in the NFL
2. Thesis Statement
a. Football is a hard-hitting sport and can cause concussions, head injuries, and even permanent brain damage.
3. Preview of the main points
a. Concussions can be defined as “by immediate and transient alteration in brain function, including alteration of mental status and level of consciousness, resulting from mechanical force or trauma.”
b. Concussions have been a major problem in many physical sports and policies have been put into place to try and protect athletes.
c. NFL players that are taken out of the game can lose the opportunity to gain titles for specific football stats as well as risk the opportunity for the team they are playing for to lose. The NFL policy in place for concussions has issues and
4. Transition to body of speech
a. The point of this informative speech is to educate you of the pros and cons of the NFL policy that had been put into place in the outcome of a concussion during an NFL game.
BODY OF SPEECH
5. #1 Main Point
a. Concussions are an injury to the brain that has many effects
i. The American Association of Neurological Science defines a concussion as “a clinical syndrome characterized by immediate and transient alteration in brain function, including alteration of mental status and level of consciousness,...

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NFL and Concussions
The quarterback drops back into the pocket. He looks down field as his receivers run their routes. He finds an open man and threads a needle into his receiver’s hands. As he catches the ball the defender hits the receiver with head to head contact. Despite dropping the ball, the receiver sustained a concussion. Concussions happen every week in the NFL and need to be noted very carefully. The short and long term effects of multiple concussions can be devastating to the human mind. Not only does the brain suffer long-term physical damage, players also suffer from long term mental problems. Therefore, the question becomes, is the NFL doing enough to prevent players?
Concussions are the leading cause of injury in the NFL today. To justify how serious concussions are, the NFL says they are doing everything the can to prevent concussions. Some question that this is part of the game and it will happen no matter what. Others question that this is not expectable and something has to be done. There are debates that players should have to retire after a certain amount of concussions, while the NFL believes that if the right procedures are taken that their shouldn’t be a restriction.
As a regular viewer of ESPN, I recently realized the amount of...